Web Design Garage

Chapter 5. Choosing Colors

Choosing an effective color scheme for your Web site is one of the great juggling acts of the designer's role. Every design element on the page—including empty space—has a color, and you want to make sure that all the colors work together to reinforce the mood and purpose of your site.

TIP Try this: Keep most of the colors in your site in the same color family: warm and inviting, fun and energetic, or calm and cool. Then, for one or two design elements like links or alert symbols—design elements that really need to stand out—use a color in a completely different family.

You can break down the job of color selection into three broad areas: text and background colors, link colors, and interface colors.